Story time!

I know, I know. I don't blog for ages and then post three essay entries in three day?! Sporadic blogger is my job title. Nah, jokes. I'm an au pair. That's french. That means it's fancy.

Truth is, today I began work at 8am. Finished at 9:30am. I don't start again until 4:30pm so that is a whole 7 hours to fill. The plan was initially to head into town and do a spot of shopping. As I was happily bopping along to Nicki Minaj while getting stuff together to go out, I heard the rain hitting the roof pretty heavily. I look out to see torrential downpour coupled with sunshine. I also realise it's kinda cold. So I put on the thermal socks and declared Friday 2nd September a duvet day (not including those 4 hours I have to work today).

New Zealand daytime telly is terrible. It's all infomercials. They have Jeremy Kyle but they save those relocation shows for prime time, you see. I don't particularly want to watch Jezza, there are some reasons I don't miss England. So my duvet day has been spent on the laptop and I decided to catch up a little bit with the blog. 

Remember all those posts from when I was in Asia? Well, the stuff I wrote about is only a fraction of the things that went down while there. And while I was updating the entries with pictures I kept remembering things that happened while I was there that I had failed to mention. So today is your lucky day, it's story time, my friend!

While in Asia we saw some a lot of animals wandering about. When we went to Big Buddha, we saw a random cow going about it's business. I don't know why it amused me so much, but it did. 

I told you about the park next to our hostel in Nanning, right? The one were the men play some board game and kids run around in onesies with holes in the back, their bare bottoms on show to the world so they can go potty whenever/wherever they please. I forgot to mention it's also the dentist office.

If I learnt anything from my International Marketing class, it's that you gotta be careful what you name your product. There will be some idiot who will find the name of your product funny. I mean, c'mon China, do you seriously think 'Classy Kiss' is a good name for your dairy product?

We all recognise Lays. It's like the foreign Walkers, only not as good. In China they have crazy flavours like Blueberry. Yeah, blueberry crisps. Kinda wish I had bought them.

Supermarket shopping China was good fun. It was total pot luck. Some items would have an English description but most of the time you had to just guess by the pictures, which was quite difficult when it came to buying vegetarian noodles. A conversation Sarah and I would often have is "Is that picture some kind of seafood or vegetable?". Poor Sarah had to stick to plain noodles. We did pretty well with the shopping in China. Nothing was too inedible, except the melon we bought. Or what we thought was melon. The fruit had already been cut up and the colour and texture looked like melon. When we came to eat it, it did not smell like melon and definitely did not taste like melon. It smelt/tasted like vomit. No word of a lie.

This is Anna and Eva with the Pineapple man. It was day one in Hanoi. The girls had managed to haggle Pineapple man down to 2,000 for a bag pineapple. It was all agreed and he prepared the pineapple for them. Eva gives the guy a 20,000 dong note. Pineapple man puts it in his shirt pocket and ignores us as we stand there waiting for change. Eva begins arguing with the guy and he refuses to give change no matter how many times she says "too much". The next bit happened pretty quick, but Eva puts down the pineapple, puts her hand into Pineapple man's pocket, takes out her 20,000 and runs. We follow swiftly behind hoping Pineapple man isn't going to hunt us down. And that is why Eva is my haggling hero.

As I was saying, in Asia we saw a lot of animals just wandering the streets. There were dogs everywhere in Vietnam. It was quite nice to see that mostly they looked well taken care of. I guess the ones they don't eat they treat well. Anyway, we meet this little guy in Hoi An. Introducing Fat Dog.

We couldn't stop laughing about the dog. It was cute and I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for the dog as it couldn't really move.

When we were in Hoi An we stayed at a hotel a little bit out of town and would get the free shuttle from the hotel's shop. Every time we got there, the woman who sold me the jacket I had made was there and would love to talk to us. I think she was called Ti, but my memory is bad. She wanted to know everything about our lives. About boys. We asked questions about her life and the differences between us was shocking. Her dream was to travel to South Korea to see snow. And go to Thailand for the beaches.

At One Tree Hill in the jacket Ti's uncle made.

Ti worked all day, every day at the family's shop. She explained how she had to work in the shop because her sewing skills were not good enough to make the garments. She thought she would never leave the job, not unless she got married. But she didn't have much confidence in finding a husband, she said her family weren't rich enough. It was eye opening to hear about her ambitions and her way of life and how she felt about it. Made me grateful for the millions of options I have which mean I can do anything I want.


So, remember the post I wrote while in Hue where I promised to tell you about my sleepwalking? And then never did? Well this is how it went down. As far as I can remember. (It's really not that interesting).

Basically I wake up and it's pitch black. I must explain I was having a somewhat bad dream prior to this. And I don't know where I am. I jump straight out bed and start feeling around in the dark. Unfortunately in my sleep induced state I can't quite remember what I said, but it was something along the lines of "WHERE AM I? I DON'T KNOW WHERE I AM". i.e. I'm freaking out. Big style. I finally wake up/remember where I am to the giggling to the girls in my room. That's right I was staying in a dorm. I realise that I was sleep walking, tell the room so and just got back into bed. Luckily the girls that Sarah and I were sharing a room with were some of the loveliest girls we met on our travels! (Photo from Kerry-I like this picture because it looks like I have a tan!)

Rangitotototototototo

So remember yesterday when I said that I had zero plans for my birthday. Well I did something because I'm not that boring. And although the activities may not have been strictly to celebrate my birthay, I decided they were.

At institute I got talking to Amanda about doing something at the weekend and we decided that it'd be fun to hike up Rangitoto. You know, that island that's Auckland's biggest and youngest volcano? Yeah, well that's what we were going to do because we're hardcore. Weather permitting of course. I mentioned that it was my birthday that weekend and Amanda got all excited and I had to break it to her that I actually could not be bothered to organize anything.

This is the part where I tell you about my birthday weekend. Or should I say week? I mean, the whole week I was giving myself treats because it was almost my birthday. Frozen yoghurt you say? Why not, it's my birthday on Sunday. When I walked past the cake shop the next day, I decided I would treat myself again. Seriously the passionfruit one is to die for. Long story, short: After checking with Sarah that I wouldn't look like a heifer having frozen yoghurt two days in a row, I went on my merry way with some passionfruit goodness.

Saturday I arose bright and early in preparation for catching the 9:15 ferry to the island. I was in the kitchen making myself a packed lunch when Andrew came in, obviously shocked to see me up before 10 on a Saturday and said something along the lines of "You're up early. Making sandwiches. Are you off on a hike or something?". To which the answer was of course, yes I was. So we discussed the weather and whether (haha) it was still too cold for shorts. The consensus was that shorts were perfectly fine for a beautiful day like that Saturday.

All geared up, I set off to catch the bus to the ferry port. I tell you what, I looked like an idiot walking through Ponsonby in my shorts and hiking boots. I mean there's a load of hills around here, but come on. I had a little panic that I was going to miss the ferry but I made it in good time. The man at the ferry port made me brush my boots down as "They didn't want any infestation on the island". I would have taken offense, but I didn't actually care and he was asking everyone else to do it too. Amanda jumped on the ferry at Devonport and we  took the 20 minute journey over to Rangitoto on the crowded boat. We decided that we would aim to catch the 12:45 ferry back so we decided to take the direct track up and when we arrived at the island we set off on our merry little way towards the summit.

That day was quite hot and I could easily have changed my name to sweaty Betty and it would be accurate. But after almost an hour of walking, we made it to the top. The day was just beautiful and the surroundings and view were just picturesque. We enjoyed our packed lunches in the warm sunshine and then proceeded to take pictures of everything. Here are a selection of the view:

You know how it's a volcano? Well this was the crater. I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't filled with lava, but I guess I wouldn't want to be there if it was...

When it got to 12, we decided we better begin the walk down. As we hadn't taken any photos on the way up, we were making plenty of stops on the way down.

LAVA ROCKS!

The summit.

As we were walking, everything kind of looked the same and we had no idea how far away we actually were. Then we got to a sign that said it was 40 minutes back to the wharf. We had 25 minutes before the ferry was due to leave. We decided that it couldn't be accurate and that if we picked up the pace we would be fine. Suddenly there's loads of people running past us. There are only three ferry departures from the island a day so if we missed the 12:45 one the next, and last, ferry was at 4. There are no shops or cafes on Rangitoto so we didn't fancy hanging around. Each time another person ran past us we discussed whether we too should begin running. We agreed that at 12:35 we'd start running. So at 12:35 we begin running.

Did I mention that the ground is made up of loose lava rocks and really uneven? No? Well it is and running on it is not fun. And probably not really safe. But I'm proud to say that Amanda and I were star athletes that day and made it to the wharf before the boat even showed up, giving us plenty of time to sit and relax. When the boat actually arrived it took forever for everyone to get off and on so we probably didn't have to run.

Back on the ferry, we both got off at Devonport and headed to Narrowneck Beach, which gave an excellent view over to Rangitoto Island. It was lovely and warm and after a morning in hiking boots it was nice to walk around bare feet in the sand. The water was quite cold though! We stopped off at the cafe there and I treated myself to some chips because, well it was my birthday and I was at the seaside. It was an awesome day and it was great to spend time with a fun girl having plenty of laughs.

I awake at 7am on Sunday morning and after getting over the initial shock that it was 7am already, I remembered that it was my birthday and that my mother had sent me a present. I jumped out of bed and grabbed my present and card that had been delivered that week and got right back into bed. First I opened the card which had been sent from Australia and couldn't help but laugh when I saw this beauty created by Alex (thanks bruv!).

Next I moved on the the shiny purple package. I opened it up, pulled out a t-shirt my mum had bought me (it looks good btw, mother). I struggled to get the next thing out. I pulled really hard and managed to get the present out but heart balloons and confetti went everywhere! And I mean everywhere. Between every sheet on my bed and under every piece of furniture. I'm still finding pieces of it now, almost two weeks on. This morning there was a heart confetti in my shower. My shower, Mother. A different room to where my bed is.  I got some lovely little present from my mother including the mascara I was craving and a cute little snow flake charm.

When I ventured out of my room for breakfast the family all sing 'Happy Birthday' to me and they had bought me lovely charm as well. Susan asked what I had planned for my birthday and said they wanted to take me out for dinner. I accepted of course. At the end of church the ysa were planning a rehearsal for that evening. I told Maureen I couldn't make it because the family were taking me out for a birthday meal. She got all excited and cancelled the rehearsal and instead put on a dessert night in my honor.

After consuming my favourite meal of pizza with the family I headed over to meet the ysa and ate delicious cake. I got to speak to my parents on Skype and also to my grandmother which was a pleasant surprise. All in all, my birthday which had no plans ended up being pretty good. And to top it off, Sarah took me out to see SOAP - the Show on Tuesday night, which was pretty good. It was at Auckland Civic Theatre which is just BEAUTIFUL. I've been trying to find a decent picture of the inside, but it ain't happening.

Thank you to all my birthday well wishers. It makes me happy that people take the time to say hello on the day of my birth. And maybe next year I'll get over my birthday issues and actually do something about it.

"nobody likes you when you're 23...."

Happy Birthday to me.

I officially turned 23 last Sunday and unlike the previous couple of years, I did not have a breakdown about my fleeting youth. I think they call this progress. Despite this, I still have some issues about my birthday, and this year was no exception.

Leading up to my birthday I was having a bit of a sad moment thinking things like "This is going to be my first birthday away from home" and what not. This thought stayed with me a couple of days until I remembered my eighteenth birthday spent at EFY.

And then there was my sixteenth birthday spent at youth camp. That was the camp where the phrases  'Aaaannnaaaa! What you do that for?' and 'Cale boca' were coined, the latter being most likely spelt incorrectly.

I can't remember how I've spent most of my birthdays due to my terrible memory. My birthday is in the middle of the summer holidays which means that I've probably been away on 21st August quite a few times over the years. Anyway, the point I'm failing to make is that this was not my first birthday away from home at all.

The second issue I faced was that I live  in a new place, well, new country,  um, continent ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD from most of my friends and family. Unlike my friends back home who are aware of my impending birthday, most of my friends over on this side of the planet are yet to learn this piece of information through years of celebrating my birth. (Or seeing it approaching on Facebook.) Let me tell you, it's mega awkward telling people "It's my birthday next week". In a world where I'm attempting to make friends through my explicit coolness, uttering that phrase made me feel like a 12 year old again. And that is not cool.

If there's one thing I hate, it's organizing get togethers. If there's one thing I hate more, it's organizing my birthday get together. Seriously, it's too much like hard work. The hardest thing is trying to come up with something that isn't too lame and isn't the same as you do every other weekend. This is the reason why the last couple of years my birthday get togethers have been at Nandos (except last year where we mixed it up and went for a curry). It's because I can't be bothered thinking of anything to do.

I think I sound pretty egotistical when organizing these things. "Come to MY birthday meal which will be all about ME, to celebrate ME on the day I was born". Let's not forget there was probably another 499,999 babies born the same day as me. Despite this, I still expect my family to treat me as a queen on my birthday. anything less is unacceptable.

It's just stressful finding a time when people can get together. Murphy's Law clearly states that the day of my birthday celebrations will be the one day of the year where all my nearest and dearest are simultaneously out of the country/out of town/at work/at a wedding/family do they just can't get out of. I remember my shock last year when David (my brother) came along to my birthday meal. Thank you Dav-ido, you made me feel special.

I also don't feel too comfortable forcing people into the present buying dilemma. You know the 'do I buy her a present?/If I show up without a present and everyone else has one I'll look like an idiot/Is our friendship more card or present or both?' kinda dilemma. Let it be known, a friendly 'Happy Birthday' and hug will suffice (birthdays are one day a year where it's ok to force hugs upon people). Despite this, I still expect my family to buy me awesome presents every year, anything less is unacceptable.

All of this just a mammoth introduction to my third issue, which is unique to 2011. Thirdly, I could not be bothered organizing something and reminding myself that my best friends are all back home (yes, homesickness sucks, I like to keep it at bay by avoiding these kind of thought processes). So when it came to the week leading up to my birthday my plans were this: nada.

But never fear, dear reader, I had an awesome birthday. In fact I'm going to write another post devoted to how I celebrated my birthday. And this is not an empty promise because I have already written the post (boom!) and is scheduled for tomorrow. Check me out being organised and all that jazz.

Updates

The update is that there is no update. One day soon I'll update you on what I've been doing since coming back to Auckland.

But the update I do have for you is that I've been adding pictures to my previous posts. You have probably seen them in the facebook album but I guess the blog puts them in context. If you're bored take a look! The posts that have been updated are:

• Greetings from Nanning!
• Life without straighteners.
• Glass case of emotion.
• Bites, Bikes and Boats.
• Hoi An - The place where every hour is happy hour.

I'm still working on the rest...

These videos sum up why I want to travel more.

Only a minute each and totally worth a watch.


MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.


LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Things to do.

1. Upload my pictures from Vietnam and China and New Zealand.

Too. Many. Photos.

Queenstown and Christchurch

Sometimes I need reminding that I keep a blog that needs updating because people actually read it. Thanks for the reminder Clemence! I started this blog post while I was still in Queenstown but got distracted by skype.

I was in Queenstown for four days and I loved it. Initially I was only staying in Queenstown for 2 days but that would have meant I would have to have stayed in Christchurch for 3 days. Everyone I met advised me against it. Not because there might be an earthquake or whatever but because there is absolutely nothing to do there.

The day we left Wanaka we stopped off at Puzzling World. It was basically a museum of optical illusions. My head hurt by the end. Iona, Catriona and I got terribly lost in the maze. I crawled under the walls to no avail and in the end used the emergency exit. That day I learnt that getting lost in a maze is scary. They had one of those crazy rooms like they had in Shanghai. The bonus of this one was that there wasn't a million school kids running all over the place. (For those of you who don't know, you can view larger images of these pictures by just clicking on them...)

This room was way creepy. Where ever you go in this room, all the eyes follow you. 

 Leaning Tower of Wanaka and obligatory tourist shots.

Just outside of Queenstown, we stopped at Kawarau Bridge which is where Bungy jumping all began. We got to lie on huge bean bags while watching a film about the history of bungy and how crazy AJ Hackett is. Then we got to watch people taking the leap. We chanted along with some school group when some kid was too scared to jump. After watching everyone jump I still had no desire at all to throw myself off that bridge, hanging from a load of elastic. This is Greg from our group doing the bungy:

We finally made it to Queenstown and I'm so happy I stayed those extra days, totally worth it. It's a total ski town and everyone in town has obviously been hitting the slopes or are on their way there. We were surrounded by snow topped mountains on every corner. By the time I arrived in Queenstown I'd pretty much run out of money to do the cool activities like skiing (which is pretty much all there is to do in Queenstown), So I took full advantage of the free activities.

Thankfully the hostel we are stayed at was lovely, quite a luxury compared to the last couple of places we had been staying. I could probably quite easily have spend a day sat in front of the fire in the common room. Queenstown is such a party town so that wasn't really an option.

One of the free activities was to walk! Me and Catriona opted to go up Queenstown Hill instead of the Gondola Track as the track looked too much like hard work. And way steep. A girl staying in our room had warned us that  the Hill was pretty steep and it was also pretty icy. She said it was hard work but definitely worth it. So off we went. And it was INTENSE. Now I'm not in the best shape, but I'm not totally unfit. Just walking up the street leading to the walk I had to take a break. When we got to the top of the street and I saw that the incline continued, I seriously considered turning back. This picture really doesn't show how steep this road is, but it has steps! It has steps because if it was a bog standard pavement it would be impossible to walk on.

We eventually made it to the track and as Melissa had warned us, it was pretty icy. Fortunately (or unfortunately as I thought at the time) there was enough patches of grass and mud to continue. We took our first break at the look out and appreciated the view of Queenstown and the Remarkables. 

As we got deeper into the forest we came across this. Queenstown Hill is sacred in Maori culture and I'm guessing that these stones relate to that. I'm interested to find out what they mean because there were so many.

 We made it to the next look out which looked over Queenstown's neighbouring town, Frankton. By the time we got to this point the snow was pretty thick. I know the pictures don't really show this but trust me, it was way snowy and icy up there. We still had further to go to reach the summit but we were advised by a man with a dog that it was too icy to continue so we ended up just heading back down.

One day I headed up in the Gondola with Aussie Scott. We probably picked the worst day to do this as it was snow day. Snow = bad views.

 (I hate this picture of me but it's the only one I have of me in snow so I'm willing to get over it to share the snow. I hear multiple chins are in vogue now anyway)

My final day in Queenstown was spent being lazy and just wandering around town and tagging along with shoppers. And for once not buying anything. This was the view at the end of the road from the hostel.

This busker was amazing! I actually stood there for 20minutes listening to him.

Other Queenstown highlights include:

• Multiple nights in World Bar.
• Iona's "we must find the man in this photo... wait, is that him?" moment.
• Snow and mexican food for Tree's birthday. Hats and all.
• Ferg Burger. AMAZING.
• "CODE ONE!" - basically there's a guy wearing ugg boots. There were too many guys wearing ugg boots. 

The day finally came for me to bid Queenstown farwell and board the bus for the long journey to Christchurch. As we went over the mountains I felt like I was in Narnia. Everything was pretty much white except that thin sliver of blue sky.

 Beautiful view of Mt Cook. Obviously my terrible photography skills (I have no idea what I'm doing despite the fancy looking camera) failed to capture the beauty of it. The lakes up in the mountains were all a beautiful shade of light pastel blue and looked almost creamy. As Sinead said tho, the beauty of New Zealand can never be captured on camera. It's just something you have to see for yourself.

We made it to Christchurch at about 4pm. As we entered the city, our driver gave us a full brief on what to do in case of an earthquake. The thing was, he wasn't telling us as a joke. There's earthquakes all the time in CHCH and there had been a strongish (as in, you could feel it) one just a couple of days before we got there. I looked at Christchurch Quake Map and turns out there was two earthquakes while I was there.

Driving around the place didn't look very busy. We passed houses that had huge cracks in them and were sagging and falling into ditches. It was unreal. There would be a house with a load of wooden frames holding it up next to a house that looked perfectly fine, next to a house falling apart. When I got to the hostel I got chatting to a guy in my room. He had been staying in CHCH for 3 nights and told me there was nothing to do and he had spent most of his time at the hostel reading his book.

The next day I headed down the road from the hostel into the centre. You couldn't get far before you got to a barricaded road. As I was walking around I was surprised by how empty the place is. It's like a ghost town, I hardly saw anyone except near the construction sites. Walking past office blocks, you could see in and it was weird because there was office equipment in these places and there were all the wires and lights hanging down from the ceilings. This one restaurant was all set up, plates and glasses on the table but the decor was all knocked over and smashed. The place had obviously been shut since the earthquake.

They were in the middle of tearing down this building and watched them hit it a few times with the bulldozer before I got bored. Apparently about 900 buildings are still to be demolished.

That afternoon I caught my flight back to Auckland and it was weird how familiar Auckland felt. Obviously this place is beginning to feel a bit like home. I've now been back in Auckland over a week, and have completed my first week in my new job and I love it.